The Why, What, and How of Mobile’s Impact on the Service Desk

January 4, 2017
By Katie McKenna

Indulge me for a moment and raise your hand if you’ve seen an increase in mobile device usage for standard business applications (like email for example). If you’re anything like the 100% of audience members who answered “yes” to this polling question during our recent webinar with 451 Research, then your hand is raised high. There’s no question that mobile trends and digital experience innovations have permeated today’s enterprise tech landscape. But what implications do they have for the service desk?

Macro trends from 451 Research

During the webinar, Chris Marsh, 451 Research’s lead mobility analyst, shared the following mobile and digital experience trends that are impacting IT organizations on a macro level:

60% value the ability to control and personalize their experience

40% prefer to chat to a business through SMS, social media messenger

76% prefer digital channels to communicate with businesses

50% would strongly recommend a company if it has mobile loyalty programs that offered rewards

According to Chris, we need to get rid of the notion that mobile is just an extension of the rest of the linear, existing stack that’s already in place. Innovations in digital experience is a real driver of change in enterprise technology. Users are looking for more personalized, contextualized experiences. They demand a choice in the channel of engagement. Consumers are even looking for mobile loyalty reward programs based on engagement with brands and companies.

Chris continued by saying, “We’re seeing the redefinition of how and where work gets done, how goods are exchanged, and how we think of things like peer-to-peer trust and reciprocity.”

The Why – A need for an elevated digital experience

Users are expecting advancements in their digital experiences as a consumer—whether these experiences happen at home or at work. Organizations are harnessing the power of digital transformation for better consumption, transactional, productivity, and collaborative experiences for all their users: customers, partners, employees, and citizens alike.

According to Chris, this will increasingly underlie how companies compete in the future. It’s no longer just about the physical products and services. The key is in the way that these things are delivered which will increasingly be mediated and defined by new forms of digital experience and digital interaction. And Chris is quick to note that mobile and digital innovations are not just “nice to haves.” It’s not something that we will see happen far off into the future. It’s already a strategic imperative and it’s not limited to certain early adopter industries. It’s become agnostic across industries and we’re already seeing laggards that are being disrupted by others who understand this shift.

The What – Intelligent and personalized apps

With mobile, we’re talking about more intelligent and personalized applications through which data and insight can connect people with the right information and processes to deliver better experiences. Now, this doesn’t just mean a swanky UI or a consumer-grade app. This is speaking to greater automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), contextualization, and delivery infrastructure.

Again, Chris warns against viewing the digital experience as “some discreet thing on the edge of a more familiar stack” or as “just one of a number of different channel interaction experiences.” The stack itself is rapidly evolving, disrupting, and changing.

The How – Meaningful data for users and admins alike

Chris states that the “how” can be boiled down to data. How companies see, capture, and secure it. How they can understand, manage, and orchestrate this data in and out of apps. How they deliver it in meaningful ways to users. It’s all about allowing for data to flow across the IT infrastructure to deliver insights in consumable forms across all points of user interaction.

The Impact of mobile on the Service Desk

Now that we’ve explored the why, what, and how of this mobile shift, it’s time to look at the impact that digital experience innovations are having on the Service Desk.

Personnel – Your Service Desk personnel want and need to be mobile enabled just like any other knowledge workers. They want to be able to remotely access tickets, view data via mobile dashboards, and get notifications while on the move.

Deployment/Onboarding – Mobile enablement of a workforce can be complicated for the Service Desk. It requires detailed workflows, the deployment of custom mobile apps, user training, etc. in order to reach that ultimate goal of providing business value.

Context – One of the most important advantages that mobile gives us is context. All those sensors and devices can deliver contextual and environmental information into business and Service Desk processes.

Beyond ITSM – Mobile is roping in some non-traditional services (such as services related to HR, customer care, facilities, and other Lines of Business) into the service desk domain.

Internet of Things – Instrumenting the workplace supply chains and user experience with IoT tech will create a new load for the Service Desk.

Operational changes – As the service desk expands beyond its traditional focus and gathers more and more data, it’s going to play a more important role in steering business operational change and processes.

Next Steps

To hear more from Chris Marsh and other experts on how mobile is disrupting the Service Desk, watch the EasyVista webinar replay here.

Katie McKenna is the Digital Marketing Manager at EasyVista, managing all aspects of social media and the company’s web presence. She enjoys learning and sharing all things ITSM, IoT, SaaS, and IT Consumerization. Katie is also an avid reader, pizza enthusiast, and horror movie lover. Follow Katie’s latest tweets on EasyVista and industry news at @EasyVista.